Tings are unraveling in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of the author's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that manifests, here more than ever, as a intense and slanted version of our own. Organizations are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disquieting lines. An unseen force "is destroying the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and pooling in the halls of theocrats, the vaults of business empires, the control of mobs. "Something is at work, very quietly, gradually", says businessman a trader character, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his place in an Aleppo cafe. "Things we thought were secure and strong are weakening and collapsing."
Core Enigma and Her Quest
Precisely what that element might be, and methods to fight it, is the inquiry that propels this final volume, which resumes where its predecessor ended. This is, by all accounts, Pullman's final foray into the elaborately built, infinitely beguiling universe he first introduced 30 years ago, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a world whose terrain corresponds to that of this world, but whose past veers and changes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, beings in creature form; where the skies are populated with sorceresses and gryphons, but beneath those skies, buses are ridden and drinks is consumed, and middle-aged professors carry fancy shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first introduced to as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which the author began The Book of Dust, is now a mature individual: still distinctly the sharp and determined heroine of the prior volumes, but more mature, sadder, more cautious, less certain. This restraint is intensified by her division from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the cause which made him desert her in the first place.
Interwoven Plots
The daemon's resolve to go off in search of that childlike part of her which she seems to have lost (an aspect which he epitomises as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which chronicled Lyra undertake a wandering journey across Europe and into the Caucasus, meeting with wonder and danger on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and sinister powers at work. The Magisterium – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and showing its strength. Lyra's uncle – our protagonist's relative, who faults her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the church's governing body, and is set on using his newfound power to expand the church's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried baby Lyra to refuge along a swollen Thames as an 11-year-old in the prequel, is now an academic with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to Geneva to find out more about Delamare's aims. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the uncommon and precious essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial disturbance spreading out from Central Asia. The extract is viewed by various factions as a marketable commodity, by alternate groups as a scientific or spiritual phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of darkness; an affront that must be eradicated. The dilemma of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be destroyed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to His Dark Materials, our protagonist's actions, and her destiny, are demonstrated to be inextricably entwined with the fate of the world
In its predecessor, these plots ran largely in tandem. In this final book, they converge. Like the first trilogy, the protagonist's movements and her destiny are revealed to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her individual journey to reunite with her companion and regain her creativity becomes the central conflict in a larger war with an controlling regime which, as such authorities always have, is attempting to quell freedom of thinking, creativity and expression: all the inner, resistant ways in which individuals can be free.
Atmospheric Fissures and Philosophical Struggles
The story begins with the unveiling of a collection of curious openings in the makeup of the planet's sky: gateways that look to give on to different dimensions. An example of a opening manifests to be the origin of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The church, with the antagonist at its leadership, classifies these portals as a challenge to the religion's orthodoxy and aims to eliminate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from inflexible rationalism and back to feeling, however, her certainty that these sites must be protected – that their meaning and what they offer is somehow essential – grows. "The substance, or rose oil, or the vision, or the field of roses, or whatever we label it," she says, "we need it." The scene for a philosophical struggle between purity and maturity is prepared.
Plot Rhythm and Character Development
At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the
